A mobile operating system, also referred to as a mobile OS, is an operating system that operates a portable or mobile device such as a smartphone, tablet, personal digital assistant (PDA), etc. Modern mobile operating systems combine some features of a personal computer operating system with other features, including one or more of a touchscreen, cellular communication, Bluetooth communication, Wi-Fi communication, near-field communication, infrared blaster, GPS mobile navigation, still or video camera, speech recognition, voice recorder, music player, etc.
Mobile devices that use a mobile operating system commonly have a small form factor, limited interactive capability, limited display size, limited memory or storage capacity, limited processing power, or a short battery life. These limitations on a mobile device impose limitations on the capabilities of a mobile operating system. For example, a personal computer operating system running on a laptop computer can enable multiple simultaneous sessions that are open to restricted-access websites. As a result, a user can quickly switch from a session at one restricted-access website to another by simply selecting a browser tab that corresponds to the other session.
Mobile operating systems lack this capability. A mobile operating system running on a smartphone can have open only one session at a restricted-access website at a time. To switch from one restricted-access website session to another, a smartphone user must end the current restricted-access website session and commence the other by entering access-enabling information to begin the session with the new restricted-access website. In this example, if the smartphone user wanted to switch back to a session with the previous restricted-access website, the mobile operating system would require that the smartphone user end the session with the new restricted-access website and then re-enter access-enabling information to create a new session with the previous restricted-access website. All of the data from the previous session with the first restricted access website would have been lost.